


What's It All Mean To You?

by Kittycattycat



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Awkwardness, M/M, POV Third Person, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, theyre in college nyall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-01 20:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16772668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittycattycat/pseuds/Kittycattycat
Summary: Pete never put much faith in the concept of soulmate tattoos, especially not his own. Not when he heard about ‘em as a kid, not when he finally got both of his when he hit puberty, and certainly not as a young-adult college student. But when he saw that guy across the college campus library with the bad hair and the all-too-smug grin? Oh yeah, he knew that was the guy.





	1. Chapter 1

‘What, you think he’d really do it?’

‘Oh, wow, hi!’

They were innocent enough tattoos to have, really, one on his left wrist and the other on his right. Neither an extremely common phrase to hear like ‘hey!’ or ‘how are you?’ (he pitied the poor souls with soulmate tattoos like that), but nothing ridiculously outlandish or curse-filled like some kids ended up with. Just, sorta generic, honestly. Pretty average. Which was good. At least, he’d thought so when he first got ‘em during the early stages of puberty— he’d been teased enough for being weird and unordinary and freaky as it was. He'd always been afraid he'd end up like the kid in the middle school horror stories he'd heard who'd gotten a tattoo that just said ‘you useless idiot!’ and was harassed so badly that he had to transfer away to a different school only three days later.

But as he grew, he realized that, to be honest? It was kinda a pain to have such plain words as identifiers, too. Maybe not as much of a pain as it could have potentially been, but still a pain. Every little ‘what,’ every little ‘oh.’ They made him jolt in his seat with excitement— only to immediately be let down, every single goddamn time. He wasn't exactly sure when, but at some point he felt like he really just stopped caring, stopped tuning in to background conversations with hopes high and stopped caring about where his soulmate was and who they were and if they would ever even meet one another (he'd heard, sadly enough, that some never did.)

So he just stopped giving a shit. There, that was it. That was the end of his fucking quest or hunt or whatever to find his soulmates. The words tattooed onto both of his wrists just didn't matter to him anymore, they held no power over him. And so when he was sitting in the State College’s relatively large library waiting for the dorm buildings to open up so he could find his dorm room, throw his shit down, and start whatever minimal prep he wanted to do for freshman orientation, he really didn't think too much about the phrases he hid underneath some bracelets and fabric scraps his mom had made for him. 

Some fuckwads on the other side of the room talk too loudly, laugh too loudly, bang their hands and water (ha, ‘water’) bottles on the table too hard. The corner of his mouth twitches downwards in annoyance. “‘Ey, you guys wanna keep it down?”

One of them, a lanky kid with bad teeth and so much acne it makes Pete look like a goddamn Neutrogena commercial model, grins, “Or what? You're gonna try ‘n’ fight us?”

His fist clenched and unclenched several times against his side as he gritted his teeth. Just as he'd decided those assholes had had enough fun and he was gonna tell ‘em to keep their voices down in the goddamn library, the bored-looking and previously silent guy, now smirking, spoke.

“What, you think he’d really do it?”

Pete froze in his seat. The words rang through his mind again and again. ‘What, you think he’d really do it?’ He looked down to where the specific one of his soulmate markers was covered by a piece of plain tied-together cloth. ‘What, you think he’d really do it?’ 

At that exact moment, the alarm sounded over the intercom, signaling that the dorm building was now open to students. Pete grabbed his shit, bolted, and didn't dare look back.

-

The rooms were a lot shittier than he had ever imagined, which, to be honest? Was really, really fucking impressive. The walls were peeling, the paint was almost completely chipped off of most of the furniture, and the tile floor looked like it had never once been cleaned in the entire existence of the dorm. He was scared as hell to look inside of whatever absolutely filthy, bug-filled monstrosity place they called a shower room. This was college, alright. Definitely not what they showed in the preview pictures on the college’s website page, but this was it. Pete leaned back out of the doorway and checked the room number. Pretty sure this was it— not entire sure, but pretty sure. He really should've checked the dorm room assignment list again.

He took a few more steps into the room and immediately dropped his bags with a loud, resounding thunk, arms aching already. God he needed to build some muscle mass. He was basically a stick.

“Oh great, it's you.”

Pete nearly jumped out of his fucking skin. Behind the bed on the other side of the room fiddling with his luggage and bedsheets was— …fuck. Kid from the library. Soulmate. Shit shit shit shit. Uuuhh fuck. Fuuuuck. Oh god what’s he supposed to do. Shit.

He sneered, “What, you want an autograph or something? Well, get over it. I don't wanna—”

"Guess you're mine, huh?" Pete blurted suddenly, interrupting whatever was about to be said.

The guy’s eyebrows shot up, and he glanced down at his wrist (covered in ace bandages, Pete noticed) and up at Pete, and down at his wrist and up at Pete. He looked pretty damn surprised, but he still seemed more exhausted than anything. “Seriously? You? I was at least expecting somebody who doesn't look like they were dunked in a vat of grease.”

“Wh- hey!” Pete sputtered indignantly, trying to ignore the heat rising up his neck and to his face, “You looked in the mirror lately? Because lemme tell ya, bub, you ain't no sight for sore eyes neither! I didn't exactly think my soulmate would have a receding hairline by age nineteen!”

The other huffed, “Fine, fine!”

There was a brief moment of uncomfortable silence, both unsure if they should say something or move or what. The tension was thick enough that either one of them could have cut it with a knife. Finally, he could stand it no more.

“…Name’s Pete.” He stuck out his hand towards the guy sitting on the bed.

The hand was accepted and given a firm shake. “Rusty. …By-the-by, if you're Pete White, you're rooming just across the hall. Get your crap outta my dorm room.”

Pete gave a crooked, braces-filled grin. “My pleasure, pally.”


	2. Chapter 2

Rusty was good at mathematics, always had been— but he'd never been particularly gifted in the area of calculating chance. Still though, he'd say that the overall statistical likelihood of not only meeting his soulmate on the first day of college and them having a dorm room just across from his own, but also not immediately being able to tell whether the relationship was going to be romantic or platonic? It just wasn't very likely. Honestly, to him it all sounded more like the beginning to a cheesy, generic, and probably sex-filled romance novel written by some crusty woman in her mid-forties. All-in-all, it really wasn't what Rusty had wanted to happen, but it was about what he should have expected he guessed. Just his luck. 

He wished sometimes that the Venture family was more clearly consistent on which wrist was for which type of soulmate bond. He'd met kids like that before, whose whole family lines had romantic soulmate tattoos on the right wrist and platonic ones on the left or vice-versa. He'd curiously read articles on the genetics of that at one point or another, but none of the information was interesting or relevant enough to really stay in his mind. Maybe his tattoos were like that, too, but he'd never really know. His father was so dead-set against the idea of soulmates and fate in general that he had his own tattoos removed years before Rusty was ever born. Rusty had never really managed to work up the courage to ask if he'd actually met one or both of his soulmates before getting rid of the marks, but to be honest he also didn't care all that much either.

So yeah. Thanks to a combination of completely-on-brand Venture family bad luck patterns, his disaster of a father, and his own inability to discern his own god-forsaken emotions, he was stuck thinking about that pimple-faced albino dumbass who was supposedly his soulmate while laying in his stiff and shitty dorm room bed at two in the goddamn morning. Fuck. At least his roommate wasn't there yet so he didn't get complaints about all the grumbled swears underneath his breath and the shuffling of sheets and the fluffing of pillows over and over. Rusty was no stranger to sleepless nights, whether by choice or by horrific night terror caused by years of unending trauma. Still though, he wanted to fucking sleep. If anything, he needed to sleep on the information that yep, he definitely did have a soulmate. Apparently, anyways.

It's not like he already hated Pete’s guts or anything. Rusty just… didn't see anything particularly special in him. Besides the obvious “wow he's a pale fuck” that more than likely comes when anyone new looks at him, he just seemed sorta generic. Lanky with acne and braces and a button-up shirt that Rusty’s pretty sure was sized for a woman. He kinda wished he'd tried to talk to the guy for a second or two more before he promptly booted him out into the dusty, crumb-riddled mess that was already the third floor boys’ dorm building hallway. But then again, maybe that would've just been really fucking awkward. He wondered if Pete had any idea about which type of soulmate pair they were meant to be. On the few occasions he was actually able to have any sort of interaction with children his age while he was growing up, he'd always heard that stupid old nursery rhyme fairytale bullshit saying. “If it's love, your hearts flutter. If it's friendship, your eyes twinkle” or some sparkly garbage horseshit. Even thinking about it leaves a sour taste in his mouth. It never sat right with him. However that saying actually went, he certainly hadn't felt anything like it when they'd properly met each other for the first time. It was more like weird uncomfortable confusion for both of them, at least if he had been reading the general vibe in the room at that moment correctly.

He breathed out a long, annoyed sigh and decided to roll over again, this time from his side to his back. Just as quickly, he sat up again, not even flinching as his sudden movement almost banged the crown of his head against the wooden bottom panel of the top bunk above him. Heaving yet another heavy breath, he smeared both of his hands down his face in a gesture of pure, unadulterated exhaustion. College was gonna be the longest time of his entire goddamn life, apparently. Way to go, Rusty Venture. You've really done it this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consistent perspective? I hardly even know 'er!

**Author's Note:**

> This is bad, I feel like I'm gonna vomit, today isn't a good writing day


End file.
